Sans amp question

[Laserman]

Guys,

Do Any of you run the sans amp in your effects loop inside of in front of the amp? I haven't tried this yet. Doing this I should be able to turn up my preamp drive a bit higher. What would this sound like? I love the sans amp. It really makes my Carvin RL amp sound much better.

Barry

 

[Eric Moesle]

. . . in your effects loop inside of in front of the amp . . .

I have no idea what you are saying. Its EITHER in the effects loop OR in front of the amp. Which are you talking about?

 

[JimmyThunder]

I think "inside of" was a typo for "instead of".

If that's the case, plugging the SansAmp into just the effects return would replace your Carvin's pre-amp with the SansAmp working as the pre-amp. You would lose the tonal controls of your own amp but if you're happy with the way the SansAmp sounds without it, that's no problem (or, more accurately, that's the point).

 

[Revmizery]

It also depends on what model of the SansAmp you have. If you have the RBI you can use the blend control to keep some of the Carvin tone in the mix. with any other model then jalne would be correct in it would replace the Carvins tone in your chain.

 

[coolrunner989]

how would placing it in the effects loop cut out the carvin's preamp? unless he plugged bass -> sansamp -> effect return, shouldnt the signal go bass -> carvin pre -> sansamp-> carvin power section ?

 

[JimmyThunder]

how would placing it in the effects loop cut out the carvin's preamp? unless he plugged bass -> sansamp -> effect return, shouldnt the signal go bass -> carvin pre -> sansamp-> carvin power section ?

Yeah, I was talking about bass -> sansamp -> effect return because that's how I run my rig...but I intentionally wanted to bypass my amp's pre.

 

[coolrunner989]

ah, ok. sounds good.
have fun experimenting

 

[Laserman]

Guys,

I meant about running the Sansamp pedal as an effect "In the Loop". I didn't mean Bass-sansamp- effects return. I meant Bass- Carvin- Effects out-Sansamp-effects return. Sorry for the confusion.

Barry

 

[bongomania]

That's probably not going to work out for you. The effects loop send typically puts out a hotter signal than the Sansamp is designed for, so you'll get more distortion than you may want (that's up to you). Also that way you have the Carvin's preamp voicing on top of (in series with) the Sansamp's preamp voicing, which means you're not likely to get the "best" voicing qualities from either of them, and may have more noise too. The EQ's in series will also make setting up your stage EQ more difficult.

 

[JimmyThunder]

(and that, ladles and gentlemints, is why I have mine set up bypassing the amp's pre)

 

[mooney]

i've never liked the way the sans amp sounded through any loop. i've tried it on several amps.

 

[Laserman]

Guys,

What I'd like to do is to run Bass guitar-sans amp- Effects return and just by pass the carvin Preamp completely. But when I set up this way I Lose more than half the volume and I can't figure out why. Any ideas?

Barry

 

[bongomania]

My first thought is that one of the connections is balanced (a "stereo" TRS jack) and either the other connection -or the cable you're using- is unbalanced (regular mono TS jack/plug). I don't know the details of these particular units though, you'll want to check the manuals for that info. Anyway, that is one possible cause of volume loss.

Another is if the Carvin's effects loop is not a 100% series connection- it may be parallel, meaning blended 50/50 with the clean signal from the built-in preamp, in which case there goes 50%.

Another, perhaps the most likely, is if the Carvin's fx loop runs at a different nominal level than the Sansamp's output. E.g. the loop might expect a nominal +4dB "line level" signal (around 1.25V peak), and IIRC Sansamps are known to have a lower peak output than that.

Another option could be if the connecting cable or one of the jacks is faulty.